1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to liquid dispensing devices. More specifically, the present invention relates to an improved household device for storing, measuring and then dispensing, using only gravitational forces, a user-selected, specific volume of liquid.
2. Description of the Related Art
In following a cooking recipe, it is often important to measure a precise amount of liquid (e.g., cooking oil) for subsequent dispensing. The most commonly used method in cooking of measuring an amount of liquid and then dispensing it is to use a measuring cup. However, this method is widely recognized as having certain disadvantages: (a) it can be a time consuming task since it requires the use of a measuring cup that has gradations relating to different volume measurements of liquid (i.e., ¼ cup, ½ cup, etc.), (b) the manner of measuring the liquid can be imprecise in that the user pours liquid from a base stock or storage container into the measuring cup until the meniscus of the liquid reaches the target gradation; as most will be familiar with, it is difficult to precisely obtain the target amount of liquid since a pour or successive pours from the stock container often results in either too little or too great an amount of liquid being transferred into the measuring cup, (c) it often occurs that one needs to reuse a certain measuring cup and, therefore, has to stop and wash it—a time consuming, and menial task that can reduce the grandeur of cooking, and (d) sometimes, the proper size measuring cup is nowhere to be found in one's kitchen.
It would be very useful if the household, storage containers for liquids could be modified to incorporate their own measuring and dispensing components. Several attempts have been made to design, fabricate and bring to market various such modified containers or the additional components that they would need to incorporate in order to enable such modified containers to store, measure and dispense liquids. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,434,647, 6,945,014, 6,877,639, 6,026,985, 5,292,039 and 2,445,101.
Despite these prior efforts, such modified containers have had certain limitations or problems that have resulted in their not achieving widespread use. The present invention provides an improved, household container for storing, measuring and then dispensing liquids.